A day in the life of an IT Apprentice
Considering a career in IT and want to know what you’d typically get up to? Well keep reading, as we caught up with Ryan Bourne, an Infrastructure Technician apprentice to understand what he gets up to on the daily.
Ryan Bourne is a 23 year old IT apprentice for Somerset Bridge Ltd. Ryan works in the IT department at Somerset Bridge providing technical support to all the insurance companies under their umbrella (i.e. GoSkippy and Vavista). Alongside IT always being a passion and hobby of Ryan’s, he also studied it at GCSE, and computing at A-Level; he tells us he always had a feeling he would want to pursue IT as a career after education. Ryan is now 11 months into his apprenticeship and has never looked back!
A day in the life of Ryan Bourne:
7:30am: Into the office, the start of my day
Around 7:30am I arrive at the office, as I’m the first person in I have to carry out some routine morning checks. These checks are mainly for security purposes as everyone at Somerset Bridge, including myself, work with the latest technology and software to carry out our roles and duties. So, I go around the office checking each room ensuring all the IT equipment and software is safe and sound.
8:00am: Ready to Help
Once I’m sat at my desk, I’m ready to help and assist clients that have questions and queries. Clients often contact me over the phone or via email, the time it can take for me to solve a problem for a client can vary from one minute up to an hour!
As problems can quickly pile up into large figures, to help me stay under control and organised we have in place a ticketing system. I often also use the ticketing system when I’m on a call with a client, and realise to resolve this problem it may take some time, so will give them a ‘ticket’.
Some common problems I have to regularly solve tend to be issues with software, systems, and the piece of technology itself (i.e. a laptop). My main goal is to help as many clients as possible, solving their problems, so that I can close as many ‘tickets’ as possible. On average I will complete and close 40 – 50 tickets per day!
1:00pm: Training and Shadowing
Tom McCullough is an Infrastructure Administrator at my office and is there as a helping hand to me when there is a ticket I don’t know how to resolve. I shadow Tom by sitting with him, resolving the problem and closing the ticket together; this gives me some hands-on training, gaining important transferrable skills, which helps me understand what needs to be done if this problem arises again.
An example of this is when a client had a problem with their software server manager. However, I didn’t have access to this software and had never used it before. Tom helped to resolve this by giving me a tour of the software so that I couldn’t break anything once I had access to it, as I understood how to use it correctly.
2:00pm: Afternoon Activities, Setting Up Equipment
I also get involved with setting up equipment like laptops, computers, monitors and keyboards, this is mainly for internal companies. Each company can have a number of different systems, therefore I need to know and understand all of these systems, so it can get a bit complex; which is why this tends to be an afternoon job when it’s quieter and there’s more time.
4:00pm: Finished for the Day, Heading Home
Best moment of your apprenticeship at Somerset Bridge so far?
My favourite moment of my apprenticeship so far is when some of my colleagues and myself went on a works trip to Newcastle, to set up an office installing a lot of technical equipment – including monitors, laptops and keyboards. Carrying out a set up on such a large scale was very interesting, as it was something I never experienced before, and meant I learnt a lot. Five steps away from the office is the hotel we stayed in for a full week. The trip allowed me to bond with my colleagues a lot more, it was very enjoyable, and the breakfasts were particularly good!
Future career prospects and goals?
I’ve nearly finished my apprenticeship and have been given the opportunity by Somerset Bridge to become a permanent employee and train as a higher level apprentice in the area of IT; I’ve really enjoyed my time at the company so far so obviously I couldn’t turn this opportunity down!
However, long term with the knowledge and skills I’ve learnt from my apprenticeship so far, I now have the future goal of wanting a senior job role in the area of Cyber Security.
Professional Apprenticeships doesn’t only offer IT apprenticeships in the Bristol area. If you’re interested and want to find out more about what we offer, check out our current vacancies or get in touch by contacting us.
